Joe, 16 x 20 inches, oil on linenI painted this a couple of days ago. The model didn't show up to our figure session, so one of the artists, Joe, volunteered to sit for us. (Thanks Joe!)
I'm not a portrait painter. I like painting figures and heads, but I don't like painting portraits too much. You see, I'm not what you call a people person. I'm not socially dysfunctional or anything (at least, I don't think I am...) but carrying on a conversation with strangers isn't my idea of a good time. Unless we're talking about art - then I find it very easy.
Not that I typically carry on a conversation with the model while I'm painting, but you kinda do, don't you, albeit without words. Portrait painting is, in my experience, extraordinarily intimate and intense, and I just become uncomfortable because there is so much unspoken communication between the model and myself.
It's absolutely impossible to paint a portrait and only think of the model as a physical object there just to be painted. You can't ignore the persona, the psychological and emotional complexities of the individual because it's all there. The model often puts forth all this intimate energy as if to say, "what are you going to do with it?" To paint a portrait, is to have an intimate relationship with the model. There's no way around it.
I don't want that. I don't want to have that kind of emotional connection with a model. It's too much. Painting friends and loved ones that you understand is one thing. Being forced to have an intense relationship with someone you don't know that well is quite a different story, one which I can do without.
If the model is looking another direction, I can paint him/her without getting into this psychological muck and I actually enjoy it very much. After all what is more challenging and beautiful than the human form?
I was compelled to do a more portrait-y treatment of Joe on Friday, because I thought he looked a lot like Harry Carmean, who is a master figure draughtsman in every sense of the word, and who taught me how to draw the figure over twenty years ago. In a sense, I was painting memories of Carmean, using Joe's head as a reference. I could just hear him over my shoulder; "Don't do that. Lesser artists do that."
[Edit] By my quoting Carmean, I didn't mean that "lesser artists" do portraiture, or that portraiture is a lesser form of art. On the contrary, it not only requires mastery of the medium, but also a capacity to embrace, understand, interpret and express infinite varieties of the human condition. No small task. Carmean often said "Lesser artists do that" about what the student was doing with line work, or shading, or some other basic technical thing. Basically telling us we sucked.
I'm not a portrait painter. I like painting figures and heads, but I don't like painting portraits too much. You see, I'm not what you call a people person. I'm not socially dysfunctional or anything (at least, I don't think I am...) but carrying on a conversation with strangers isn't my idea of a good time. Unless we're talking about art - then I find it very easy.
Not that I typically carry on a conversation with the model while I'm painting, but you kinda do, don't you, albeit without words. Portrait painting is, in my experience, extraordinarily intimate and intense, and I just become uncomfortable because there is so much unspoken communication between the model and myself.
It's absolutely impossible to paint a portrait and only think of the model as a physical object there just to be painted. You can't ignore the persona, the psychological and emotional complexities of the individual because it's all there. The model often puts forth all this intimate energy as if to say, "what are you going to do with it?" To paint a portrait, is to have an intimate relationship with the model. There's no way around it.
I don't want that. I don't want to have that kind of emotional connection with a model. It's too much. Painting friends and loved ones that you understand is one thing. Being forced to have an intense relationship with someone you don't know that well is quite a different story, one which I can do without.
If the model is looking another direction, I can paint him/her without getting into this psychological muck and I actually enjoy it very much. After all what is more challenging and beautiful than the human form?
I was compelled to do a more portrait-y treatment of Joe on Friday, because I thought he looked a lot like Harry Carmean, who is a master figure draughtsman in every sense of the word, and who taught me how to draw the figure over twenty years ago. In a sense, I was painting memories of Carmean, using Joe's head as a reference. I could just hear him over my shoulder; "Don't do that. Lesser artists do that."
[Edit] By my quoting Carmean, I didn't mean that "lesser artists" do portraiture, or that portraiture is a lesser form of art. On the contrary, it not only requires mastery of the medium, but also a capacity to embrace, understand, interpret and express infinite varieties of the human condition. No small task. Carmean often said "Lesser artists do that" about what the student was doing with line work, or shading, or some other basic technical thing. Basically telling us we sucked.
5 comments:
Gosh, Terry. Your words struck a nerve, or a chord maybe. Not sure why. Then again, I'm not accomplished enough to paint from life and always use photos, when I dare venture into portraiture that is. I think that I don't become snared by intimacy however. I do think I wonder at the model, what their lives are like, what their thoughts are. If they are unhappy for any reason, however, I do pick up on that and take it within and worry it to death. I think this is a fabulous portrait though. There is a timeless feel to this piece, as though he could have been from 200 years ago or from tomorrow. Hope that made sense...
Chances are, I'm reading too much into the twitch of an eye lid or the moist shine of the tear duct. I don't have a problem if I'm just one of a group of artists painting a model who's looking in another direction, but I can't do it one on one. And certainly not if he/she is looking straight at me.
Photos are entirely different. I usually don't do a good job from photos because I focus too much on the likeness and not at all on the deep stuff.
I'm OK with the fact that I will never be a great portrait painter, because I can honestly say that I don't want to be one :-)
Hehe, obviously you don´t want to be it ;-) because you definetly have the technical skills.
Thanks Sara~ my technical skills are hit and miss too. I try not to show the bad ones too much, to give you the illusion that I know what I'm talking about :-)
Terry, you hit the nail on the head here. I feel the same way about painting a model one on one, it can be very uncomfortable. There was one time that a small group of us hired a model for a 3 session pose- every time I looked up she was staring right at me, despite my repeated requests to her that she look "over there". I wanted to kill her by the end...
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